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Saturday, October 27, 2012

there was a moment this morning where i honestly felt like i needed to crawl back into bed, board up the house, eat chocolate, close my eyes. we were headed to the pumpkin patch (which was entirely my idea because these are the things i deem important to do together) and i was riding in the passenger seat. my eyes felt bruised and swollen, as if from sobbing, yet i had not been crying. the feeling that even the air was too close caused me to blink ferociously behind my sunglasses and i looked out the window because i was absolutely convinced the car in front of us was going to slam on its brakes or a tire was going to blow any second. i felt the concrete scraping beneath us and it felt as though it were alive and i could not, for the life of me, understand how we were moving in a straight line. i was so thankful i wasn't driving because i had the morbidly unsubstantiated conviction that we would not have made it there. before we left the house, i could not get dressed. literally changed my clothes over ten times. finn stood in my room and mimicked my every move, a live action mirror of my ridiculousness played out in a tiny blond frame.
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at the age of 27, i was living in hawaii. in a relationship, working at a restaurant i loved, thoroughly enjoying my life. one morning, i woke up and felt as though the dark was too bright, the sky was too loud, my eyes were dilated and i couldn't seem to catch my breath. my boyfriend at the time dropped me off at work and i started crying when i walked in the door. i was physically unable to talk to my tables (much less take orders) and i felt as though i was about to start hyperventilating. my irritated (albeit concerned) coworkers and manager sent me home and my boyfriend picked me up and stayed with me all day. he lay next to me while i sobbed on and off for about nine hours for no apparent reason. by nightfall, i felt somewhat better and he took me out to eat french fries and ranch dressing. (though our relationship was up and down and highly dysfunctional, his absolute tenderness that day cemented the fact that he is one of the good guys.) i still have no explanation for my behavior that day (or my inability to control it) and yet i can remember it vividly. i know my friends and coworkers felt that perhaps i was merely being self-indulgent but it was honestly the closest i have been to having a full-on breakdown. (well, since my suicide attempt at 18 but that's another story altogether.)
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i am blessed. i am currently in a relationship with a man who will laugh when i change my clothes over and over and over. he will joke about how he shaved off his mohawk, took a shower, dressed the baby, and made coffee all before i was able to even figure out what the hell i was going to wear to a farm. but he won't do it in a way that makes me feel worse than i already do. he will go the pumpkin patch that is an hour away because it is the one i want to go to - the one with the real farm and the corn maze and live music. without even trying, he keeps me from sailing over the falls. i have put in the work over the past ten years so that i can be my own anchor. i have no answers for people who suffer from depression. i just know that it is a multi-faceted, tentacled creature who spins webs out of comfortable lies and shady truths. i know that my depression is a ripple. it is an after-effect. the stone's throw happened so long ago it is a gilded memory. but the ripples are tenacious little fuckers if you don't keep your sea legs.
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i came here to write about the pumpkin festival. and watching my kids run around a mess of pumpkins and eat barbecued corn and snow cones. i came here to write about how fucking happy i am. and this came out instead.
i suppose i'm really just happy i was landlocked today.

I don't know if you've been, but the Maple Counseling Center is a great place to talk about things, and they do it all on a sliding scale. It was the single most important thing I ever did for myself. Maybe it might be useful for you too. <3tmcc.org

Yes. Just yes. And hugs. The hardest part is that it's always there somewhere, I find. The possibility of it coming through, the blasted depression and panic attacks and anxiety, is terrifying and so real.

Harumph! What we write is so an expression of what needs outpouring. It is so beyond us, that we look at it in either repulsion or awe. But rarely do we say, "I did that". But rather "It needed doing."

I didn't know this but maybe this is one of the reasons you called Saturday morning? We spoke of innocuous and inconsequential things (other than Susie staying at your house) and I feel now I should have detected something different in your voice - but I didn't either because I truly couldn't hear anything or the distraction of people around me wouldn't let me hear. Either way, I totally understand and empathize with your struggles - some I can't help with, others, maybe.

But my lifetime did not have such catastrophic events as yours did, yet the fears are there, as blatant and colorful as yours are and I do wonder why, especially since I had a fairly normal???? childhood/teenhood. Beginning and ending marriage wasn't so uneventful--wifebeating, mental abuse, the abuse on you--- maybe they've taken a larger toll on my psyche than I am aware. Or choose to be aware. Your self-worth always seems to so iron-clad - or at least that's what I see - someone whom I envy with your assuredness in your decisions, choices and the ability to live with so much love in and around you.

I want to wrap my arms around you and soothe away all your fears and abstract anxiety--that's what mothers do. But I can't either because I'm not there at the time, I don't know about them, or they have too strong a hold on you that they are impervious to a mother's need to protect and preserve. I fear I'm not strong enough - maybe you are the stronger one. I hope so and I believe it is so. You will deal with these demons in the best way you believe, whether from an outside source, an internal prescription, or just time and perseverance.

This is a great post. I'm glad i stumbled onto it (from Elizabeth's blog). I'd like to maintain i'm not familiar with that shady, tentacled f*@#er, but dagnam, i am. Great description. I reckon i'll be back to visit again. Happy Halloween!